Bellaire Coin Club Donates $1000.00 to the
Bellaire Public Library

The "Bellaire" in our club's name means much more than the location where we meet on the first and third Monday of each month.

Over the years, the city of Bellaire has been engulfed by, and is now deeply embedded within the city of Houston. Bellaire has managed to keep a sense of "small town" while becoming an integral part of a huge metropolitan area. For us this means that we meet at a small town library that just happens to be centrally located in the fourth largest city in the the U.S. When we put on our coin shows, we deal with the Bellaire Civic Center, the Bellaire Police Department and the people at City Hall. These dealings occur with people that we have come to know over the years. They are always polite and remarkably easy to deal with.

We are proud of our four decade relationship with the city of Bellaire. We are also very appreciative of the special benefits we get just for being the BELLAIRE Coin Club. We donate to many causes throughout the year, but this one is closest to the heart.
 

Submitted by; Tim Conway

Video Microscope 
Enhances Educational Programs

The Bellaire Coin Club recently acquired a Jenco video microscope to assist members and special guests in sharing their coins during numismatic presentations. 

We first noticed the microscopes on display at the 1998 ANA show in Portland, Oregon, and took the opportunity to find out if it would be a good fit for our club. The microscope is fitted with a color video camera, which captures the magnified image, and transmits it to a monitor (a TV set) via a cable plugged into the video input jack on the monitor. 

This has been a wonderful tool during the regular numismatic presentations, in that it allows the presenter to position a coin under the scope, zoom into special features such as die cracks or mint marks, planchet flaws, etc… while magnifying the coin for all in the club to see. 

The coin displayed above is a 4'th century BC Greek stater from the City of Corinth. Seth Kravitz, a Bellaire Coin Club member, is pointing out the obverse helmeted head of Athena, the reverse showing a flying winged horse (Pegasus) during a presentation on "Mythology and Ancient Coins" at a recent meeting. These highly attractive and popular coins were produced in large numbers and are readily available today.